Moffatt Book Wins Grand Prize at Banff

by Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com Nov/2009This news story has been read 4,694 times

The winners of the 2009 Banff Mountain Book Festival

Jerry Moffatt and Niall Grimes' book, Revelations — Jerry Moffatt has won the prestigious Grand Prize at the Banff Mountain Book Festival. They will also receive $2,000 as this award is sponsored by the Phyllis and Don Munday Award and the Alberta Sections of the Alpine Club of Canada. The Mountain Literature Award, with a prize of $1,000, was given to Beyond the Mountain by Steve House.

The Banff Mountain Festival is held each year in the town of Banff, located in Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies, Alberta. It celebrates and awards all forms of mountain culture.

The 2009 judges of the Banff Mountain Book Festival were Stephen Goodwin (United Kingdom), Jon Popowich (Canada) and Susan E.B. Schwartz (United States) and they received 101 entries from 10 countries in this 16th annual competition.

TWICE FOR GRIMER

Niall Grimes, who is just about to leave for the prize giving at Banff, told UKClimbing.com: "“This is the icing on an already very tasty cake. Lots have been great about the whole project. The times sat in front of a computer with a headful of ideas are unbeatable, chats to Jerry, listening to his great stories and inspiring attitude, working with Vertebrate was a real privilege, and hearing how much folk enjoyed it made it all feel worthwhile. But getting an award, especially one as major as this, really lets you to sit back for a moment and allow yourself a satisfied little glow. I've been to the Banff Festival a couple of times so have a real link with it. Winning this is right up there with something like the Boardman Tasker.”

This is a second win at Banff for Niall, who will be sharing this years prize with Jerry Moffatt, Niall won the exposition/guidebook category at Banff in 2006 with David Simmonite for their BMC guidebookBurbage, Millstone and Beyond.

Rockfax guidebooks have also won the exposition/guidebook category twice with Deep Water by Mike Robertson in 2007 and in 2008 with Lofoten Rock by Chris Craggs and Thorbjørn Enevold

The UK's Stephen Venables won the Best Book — Mountain Literature with his, Higher Than the Eagle Soars in 2007.

Congratulations also to Jon Barton and John Coefield of Vertebrate Outdoor who published Revelations — Jerry Moffatt and are now hard at work finishing the biography of Ron Fawcett with Ed Douglas. Publication is slated for early 2010, possibly January.

'Margaret Thatcher's great contribution to pushing rock climbing standards in the 1980s can now be better appreciated: mass unemployment, climbers existing on the dole (welfare payments), dossing in caves and tumble-down shacks at the foot of crags in North Wales and the Peak District, and all the while, in Jerry's case, training, training, training, to produce (a random selection this) first ascents of Masters Wall, Cloggy, The Face, Frankenjura, the first X-in Germany, Messiah (E6 6c), hardest route on UK gritstone at the time, first one-day ascent of Kauk's Midnight Lightning boulder problem at Yosemite, a one-day ascent of The Nose in 1993, and Nelson's Column, Trafalgar Square, London, to publicize the plight of Canada's Innu people.

He was the best, and not backward in saying so, yet this story is told with a disarming ordinariness.

Who would have thought there was a readable book to be got out of sport climbing, competitions and bouldering? Well this is it.

What impresses is Jerry's obsessive training regime and his sheer dedication, hauling himself back from injury and performing superbly across a range of rock climbing disciplines. He was the best, and not backward in saying so, yet this story is told with a disarming ordinariness, droll at times. There's none of the familiar ice-gripped “heroics” we've become inured to in climbing books, and instead of dark introspection, the diversions from the actual climbing are bikes, dossing, travel, having fun and becoming a businessman (a founder of Sheffield's The Foundry climbing wall.)

Moffatt and Grimes have done climbing history a service in setting down the story of UK climbing in the “dole era” of the 1980s — a story that was quickly becoming forgotten.'

You can view more info and buy the book on the Vertebrate Publishing website: www.v-outdoor.co.uk

Niall and Jerry will be appearing at this years Kendal Mountain Festival.

Revelations: A Rock Climber's Story - Literature Event

Revelations — Jerry Moffatt is also on the short list for this years Boardman Tasker Prize to be announced on Friday 20th November during the Boardman-Tasker Award Ceremony at the Kendal Mountain Festival

Best Book — Mountain Exposition

Best Book — Mountaineering History

James Monroe Thorington Award for the Best Work of Mountaineering History, sponsored by UIAA: $500
The Last of His Kind: the Life and Adventures of Bradford Washburn, America's Boldest Mountaineer by David RobertsHarperCollins (USA, 2009) 978-0061560941

Special Jury Mention

Royal Robbins: To Be Brave — My Life, Volume One by Royal RobbinsPink Moment Press (USA, 2009)